Sunday, April 03, 2005

Surf or Drown

People may praise decorum and say they yearn for civility when the pollsters come around, but most of them would much rather bounce off hard polemical surfaces than sink into deliberative mush offered by those who fear to offend.

For the most part, I find the "screeching" to be stimulating, informative and healthy--invigorating, not agitating. The debate over the war in Iraq, for instance, which marked my first significant encounter with blogging, helps us understand our differences even as it amplifies them.

It's democratic and it snatches the keys away from the traditional gatekeepers.

And unless you intend to become a news hermit, this particular tsunami leaves you only two choices--learn to enjoy surfing or drown.

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"Reform has a tendency to put all but the biggest temperaments in a cocksure intellectual attitude -and that attitude puts one terribly out of harmony with the great underlying life forces. The gods take their revenge on the cocksure.